That immigrant experience

I recently watched a Jewish Gen program moderated by Daniel Mendelsohn who wrote about his search for his relatives killed in the Shoah.  "The Lost."  I checked it out from the library, realized that I had read it before.  But I'm still reading it.  His story revolves around the "four beautiful daughters" of his great uncle in Poland.   Killed by the Nazis.  He talked a lot about stories from his elderly relatives.

I've also joined a Facebook group about Jewish genealogy.  The posts are often about  primary information from relatives in Eastern Europe.  People know their relatives and where they lived.  They want to interpret  records from Ukraine, etc.

What struck me was, even with all this work, I've never gotten much from across the pond.

My situation may be a little different.  In regards to the provenance of my great grandparents, 5 are from German states mostly from the much earlier immigration (1840-1860); only 3 from Eastern Europe and a later immigration (1870-1890).  After 1890 everybody was here.  Which is unusual.  And I've got nothing except for some vague non-specific stories about where these great grandparents came from.

Part of that comes from the utter rejection of the immigrant experience mainly from my paternal grandparents and embraced by my parents.  My grandparents (Harold and Betty Ginsburgh) were both children of Eastern European immigrants.  But you would never ever know it.  They obliterated their immigrant roots.  It's not that they rejected it; it just wasn't there, absent.  They saw themselves as part of cultured Boston, Harvard alumni..  No Yiddish sayings or recipes.  No stories told by their parents.of the old country.  There was no old country as far as they were concerned.  Nothing to be gained from those roots.  Way way gone.

My parents (married in 1950) picked that up.  They committed themselves to the mid-century corporate life style.  My father was an aeronautical engineer also with training in nuclear engineering from ivy-league schools.  His life revolved around his work and the company.  They wanted to raise their family in the suburbs; with the conventional nuclear family.  Assimilation was the theme; California suburbs was the place.  They had no interest in living near extended family.  The advantages of the modern lifestyle more than made up for that.  None of those immigrants stories mattered.  My mother descended from the Bavarian Jews who settled in New Haven (talk about endogamy, whew!).  She liked to talked about the ancestors who lived in America.

Daniel Mendelsohn, wrote about a lot of interactions with his generation grandparents and extended family.  Absorbing the lore, stories and habits they brought with them.

But I have none of that. My grandfather, under direct questioning, said his parents came from Poznan, my grandmother told a crazy story from the Ukraine involving a young couple who changed their name to Cohen.  But they weren't much interested and it's all Brick Wall.  Nothing to go on.

No older relatives to tell me stories.  I grew up in the suburbs far away from my parents' New England roots.  I rarely saw my grandparents and my parents endorsed the idea that 'children should be seen and not heard'.'  I see now how that cripples me now.